


Go Out And Enjoy It

by MireilleGigglesnorts



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien did not go to public school, Adrinette, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M, Marinette is more genki girl than typical, Prompt Fic, Tikki is ... not, adrienette - Freeform, plagg is a cat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 13:51:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7174385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MireilleGigglesnorts/pseuds/MireilleGigglesnorts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I dredged a chatroom for prompts to drabble. It turned into longer than a drabble. </p><p>A homeschooled Adrien Agreste moves out after his eighteenth birthday for some much-needed independence, but is slow to adjust. Trying to live a normal life can be difficult when an entire city is familiar and enamored with your face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Go Out And Enjoy It

At the insistence of his best friend's well-intentioned order to sign up for a dating site to "get you out in the scene with someone who _isn't me_ ", Adrien had initially been reluctant to go through with it. His name and face were too well-known in his home city to use; the media would have a field day making up rumors if they knew one of the most sought-after bachelor models in the fashion capitol of the world was trying to e-date.

The idea stuck with him though. Adrien mostly made his own schedule after moving out of his father's estate, which meant after getting photoshoots and whatever training-session-du-jour in one big block in the first two-thirds of the day, he usually had several hours in the evenings to come home and do whatever he wanted. Indoors, away from prying paparazzi eyes, with his asshole of a dark-furred cat to talk to if Nino was already occupied DJ'ing gigs for various hotspot clubs. 

 

After a life of being sequestered in a large, mostly-empty mansion, Adrien had come to discover that he really enjoyed being among other people - provided they weren't all staring and fawning over him and asking for autographs or selfies or other such overwhelming nonsense. He just wanted to be around people enjoying themselves so he could soak up the energy. Sometimes he stuck around the venues Nino worked, but more often than not that type of scene boiled over into drunkenness and dancing and then the flirtatious advances no one had prepared him for dealing with outside of formal dinners.

Even after making a profile and filling it in with everything else - _hobbies, favorite foods, movies, authors, puns, fluent in Mandarin, puns IN Mandarin, athletic, loves good food, likes cats, video and arcade games are fun, mostly looking for a FRIENDly evening companion to kill some after-work hours with_ \- it wasn't too surprising no one really stopped to linger. So after a fortnight of spambot messages and a few creepy vibes from skeezy messages in his inbox, he'd decided to go by the alias "BlackCat007". The idea had come to him while straightening up some forgotten boxes in his closet.

One stark bathroom selfie later and his profile now sported a picture of his face, albeit partly obscured by a slightly dusty cat half-mask he'd used for a Halloween party a few years back. One of his green eyes winked, the other caught one's attention with its brightness in the vanity lights, but with an enormous, cheesy smile below.

Another week or so passed before Nino asked him how the dating site thing was going around a mouthful of heinously gooey cheeseburger. They were seated at a pub's bar counter, Adrien sticking to a less unhealthy-looking basket of fries. He admitted he'd actually forgotten to check after updating the profile and got out his phone to see. To his surprise, there was a message waiting in his email inbox, and he tapped through to read it, with Nino not-so-sneakily leaning over to peek at it.

"Hey BlackCat!  
Sooo ... to get this off my chest, I actually bookmarked your profile when I first came across it a few weeks back because I liked it, but didn't say hi because, no face is usually a no-go on these sorts of websites, you know? A lady's got to be careful who she makes friends with. 

But then you added a pic! And we match!! I dunno, I just thought that was really cool because I've never seen anyone else with profile icons like ours. ^ ^ And even though it's under a mask, seeing your face is .. really reassuring haha.

You sound like an interesting guy so .. I guess this is me putting myself out there? For hanging out at least, if you want to. Peep my profile, hit me up sometime?  
LittleLadybug"

 

".. Well she doesn't sound crazy, so that's a good sign yanno?"

 

"I'm not going to judge a person by their first message anyway Nino. I'll write back once I get home to say hello. .. Shit, she sent this four days ago. She probably thinks I ignored her."

 

"Nahhh, these sites, you don't always get answers right away. Prob no big deal man. There a pic?"

 

Adrien thumbed his screen, scrolling to the very bottom of the email and peering at the small image.

 

"Yeah, but it's pretty littl- oh! hahaha, I see what she means now. Look."

 

He held up his phone for Nino to see. "LittleLadybug" wore a red-and-black-spotted domino mask and a headband with poofy red antennae. She was smiling shyly at whomever was taking the picture, a bit of embarrassed color on her face beneath the mask, one hand in the typical V up near her cheek. Nino swallowed his mouthful of food and then grinned at his friend.

 

"Ahh, she's a cutie! Look at those dimples. And you didn't have to message her first! Lucky you."

 

He teasingly punched Adrien in the shoulder, who matched his grin with one of his own.

 

"Yeah yeah. We'll see. I still sort of feel like the moment she figures out who I am the news is gonna show up at my door the next day for a scoop. I need to be careful or Father will have a fit about my public image."

 

"Bah! Humbug. Let him fuss then. You need to enjoy yourself sometimes. He kept you to himself for eighteen years, so now it's time for you to get out there and have some fun without him breathing down your neck."

 

"Nino ..."

 

" _Bro._ Your pop's a turd, my dude. He is a stuffy old jerkface."

 

"Nino."

"Your dad wouldn't know what 'simple joy' was if it blew bubbles in his face." 

 

The DJ brandished a handful of fries wobblingly toward Adrien's face as demonstration, but the golden-haired model only laughed at the mental image of his admittedly straight-laced father blinking at bubbles on his nose. Chuckling, Adrien rose from the stool and pulled on his high-collared jacket and a black beanie, the outfit he wore to not draw attention to himself while out and about.

 

"Your gig's in fifteen so I think I'm gonna head out. Knock'em dead Nino. Like you always do."

 

"Of course! The dirty _lower_ layer of Paris loves me, unlike your dad." 

They bumped fists and then he was off, threading through the growing throng of clubbers and bar regulars, out from the dead-end alley back where the venue's side entrance was onto the main street. It was only another couple blocks to the metro station, and a few minutes' wait until the next arrival.

~ ~ ~ 

Once seated in the emptiest car, he relaxed a bit and doffed the beanie, ruffling his hair with both hands. He'd learned that trick early on in his modeling career; after so much primping and perfect styling and makeup, most laypeople were convinced at a glance that a bare-faced, mussed-hair Adrien wasn't in fact the model on the wall-sized poster a few meters away. 

Two stops after boarding the train, he looked up as the doors slid open to see a woman about his own age start to get on, peering down at something small in her cupped hands. On the second step, she stumbled and tripped with an undignified squawk. Adrien watched it happen, and though too far away to catch her by the elbow for support, the object in her hands went flying up into the air, straight for his face. He caught it then knelt forward across the aisle to help her up from where she was leaning, shoulder breaking her fall on the railing.

 

"Are you all right?"

 

"Ow. Haha. Yeah. ... Ow." She took his offered hand and was all but lifted back to her feet. "Heh, thanks. I'm a _massive_ klutz, I trip over air all the time." 

 

The train set off again and he took his seat once more, holding up the round object in his hand with a friendly smile. 

 

"Oh, Tikki! Thank you, I'm so glad she's okay. Gosh what if I'd dropped her?" She took it back and sat down next to Adrien, an embarrassed little blush on her cheeks as she stroked her palm over the thing, slipping its keyring over a finger.

 

"What, uh .. what is it?" He was genuinely curious, leaning over just a smidge to look at it - a red egg-shaped device with black buttons beneath an old-style LED screen. She glanced up, looking surprised that he doesn't know and wow, okay _wow_ her eyes were very blue.

"She's a tamagotchi! You've never seen one?" 

 

"I guess not?"

"Oh! Sorry, it's just- they were really popular in the nineties, I sort of thought everyone knew what they are. It's a toy pet! You feed them and play with them and if you don't they can get sick, but sometimes they can lay an egg to have a baby and um." 

 

She cut herself off suddenly, looking embarrassed to have gushed, and tugged nervously on the ponytail of blue-black hair falling over her shoulder.

 

"It's cute."

 

"Eh?"

 

"It is. It's a cute toy, and it's.. endearing that you care as much as you do about it."

 

"Ahh, thanks! I think! .. Some people think it's childish. My parents never wanted any pets, but they got this for me on my birthday like ten years ago, and well .. she pretty much grew up with me."

 

"Haha, that I can understand. I was homeschooled so I guess that's why I haven't seen one before. And Father never liked animals either, so, _naturally_ the first thing I did when I moved out was buy a little black kitten."

 

"Aahhh! Cute! I still live at home and help out in our bakery, so I still can't have a real pet yet ... I'm jealous, haha!"

Adrien grinned and pulls out his phone from an inside pocket in his jacket, quickly dismissing the email he'd been looking at to bring up his photo gallery instead. He flicked to an album from a few years ago, then leaned over to show her a picture of a black furball curled up on a chair, staring directly at the phone's camera.

 

"Don't be fooled by how adorable he looked when he was a kitten. Plagg is an ass. I've never had any other roommates but I think I can confidently say he is The Worst Roommate Ever."

 

The young woman next to him made a high-pitched squeak and clutched at her face, the tamagotchi dangling from one of her thumbs. 

 

"Oh no he's too cute look at him awwwwh!! He has such beautiful green eyes, like you! That's so cute, oh my gosh."

 

Adrien flinched, just a little. Did she know who he was? Was this the inevitable segue into "I love you I have six magazines at home right now with your face on them because you're so handsome" that he'd had to politely run away from several times before?

 

"Thanks?"

 

She gasped, realizing what she'd said, and thenher hands covered her face as she stared at him.

 

"Ohmygod I'm sorry, sometimes the brain filter doesn't work, that was .. forward, and awkward, I'm so awkward sorry."

 

Well. None of the prior fangirl freakouts had gone like that. So maybe she _didn't_ know. 

"I - .. It's fine. Thank you, though." His smile flickered as he heard his station called over the loudspeaker. "Shoot, that's me."

Her hands fell to her lap, and then he felt like a jerk at how dismayed she looked. He could see a little spray of freckles on the bridge of her nose even though she was blushing lightly.

"I promise I'm not just saying that, haha! This is my stop coming up. I enjoyed your company, miss .. ?"

"Uh, Mari! Marinette."

He let an easy smile play over his features, drawing a little of his casual-model side out as he bent to retrieve his nearly-forgotten beanie from the seat beside her.

 

"Well, miss Marinette, I hope you have a wonderful evening. Tikki is in good hands so long as you don't drop her again."

 

Marinette flushed as the eyes she couldn't help but have noticed tracked her own as he bent over her, but smiled back at him, bright and absolutely _cute_ with the dimples now showing on her cheeks.

 

"You too, um -"

 

"Adrien."

 

"You have a good night too, Adrien."

The metro slowed into the station and when the doors opened, he hopped easily down them, waving to her over his shoulder. He waited until it pulled away, hands in his pockets, and then cursed under his breath. Maybe he should have gone out on a limb and asked for her number. ... Oh well. Paris is a big city. They probably won't happen upon each other again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marinette's mask, "Tikki", and Adrien's mask: http://imgur.com/a/bWRP7


End file.
